The Unmistakable Call of God-Contentment is Overrated!
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Slide 1
What an exciting day this is for Pam and me, we hope and pray it is for all of you as well! This morning is going to be a little different from what I will generally be doing as a message. As this is our 1st Sunday at Sheridan Lake Bible Church, I thought that perhaps today we should introduce ourselves to all of you, so this morning will be one of the very rare days where the message won’t be rooted in Scripture. Although many of you may not know us yet, you likely know who we are and what we are doing here.
We are Jim & Pam Canady. Pam and I met in February 1986, started dating in May, got engaged in July and married in November.
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We have 2 adopted children, I guess you could say they are adult children , Slide 4 Steven is 30 and live in Commerce City , CO-which is a suburb of Denver- where he works for a firm that installs, repairs and monitors security and fire alarm systems. He is pretty much the ultimate outdoors man, so Colorado is the perfect place for him to live! One of the things Steven enjoys doing the most is rock climbing. My guess is that you may have a different idea of what rock climbing is compared to Steven. Here is a picture of Steven climbing. Slide 5
Brittany is 20, she has always loved working with kids. Slide 6 Who all here is familiar with Camp IdRaHaJe? For those not familiar, that is the camp Pastor Kevin & Leslie met at, and it is also where I met both of them’ Leslie in 1974 and Kevin the summer of 1979. Well, both Pam & my kids also worked there. Steven for 9 summers as well as a few special school sessions, and Brittany for 6 summers. Camp IdRaHaJe is a Bible camp located in the mountains south of Denver. Slide 7 Also, in 2018 Brittany and I had the privilege of participating on a mission trip to Pune, India. A big part of what out team did was to run a VBS for the children in the Ramtikidi Slums. In the Indian caste system these children are the Untouchables, but in the eyes of the Almighty, there is no such thing as an Untouchable. We gave some pretty strict instructions to those who were making arrangements for the VBS. We could only handle 240 children because that was all the food we had for the kids. Sometimes I think that God just laughs at our plans, our 1stday we had 238, by our last day we had 355 and we had leftovers every single day! While God may have laughed a little at our plans, He also moved as many kids put their faith and trust in the One Who reached down from heaven and touched each one.
So, I have told you about our kids, now let me tell you a little about Pam and me. As I mentioned earlier, Pam and I met, started dating, got engaged and married in 1986. Slide 8 As you can see from our engagement picture, we have hardly aged at all! We were both raised by Godly parents, Here is a picture of Pam’s parents. Slide 9 Pam’s Mom lives in Nebraska, and her Dad lives in an incredible mansion in heaven. He was a young father of 5 children with a dangerous drinking problem when God snatched him out of the grip of the enemy, God then transformed him from one who abused alcohol to one who wanted nothing more than to tell others of the God who transforms lives. Pam’s Mom, well the best way to describe her would be to have you take the time later today to read Proverbs 31, I seriously think you could post her picture there and simply say, do what she does!
My parents live in a Overland Park, KS, a suburb of Kansas City. Slide 10 They spent 42 years in Village Missions, the last 10 Dad was the CEO. As dad was preparing for his last year of Bible college, he and an older classmate spent the summer working as an interns at a tiny church in Tangier, IN. Dad with the youth and his classmate preaching. They were both students at Moody Bible Institute at the time. It was a 1 room church next to a one room school and my parents, Pam and me visited there while we lived in Indiana. At the end of the summer as he was preparing to head back to Moody, he asked who would be coming to lead for while they were away at Bible College. The answer, “Well no one, the only time we get someone here is over the summer months when Moody sends someone”. My dad’s heart sunk, that was when he decided he wanted to be a pastor of a rural church. After graduating from Moody, he transferred to Bryan College in TN where he was going to get a teaching degree. He would teach in the school to earn an income, and pastor the local church. Then one day during chapel at Bryan College, there was a speaker there from an organization that had a heart for rural America. Any ideas on the name of that organization?
So, as you can tell, we both have an incredible Godly heritage. We both trusted Christ early in life and for the most part our walks with Christ have been solid. We have both always been heavily involved in the local church and even spent 9 years in the 90’s in the youth ministry, Slide 11 5 of those in a Village Missions Church on the southern Oregon coast.
After leaving the Youth Ministry, we continued our heavy involvement in the local church. I am not sure there is an area of the church we have not served in? Pre-school, nursery, children’s ministry, youth ministry, all ages of Sunday School, preached, been a Deacon, Elder, Chairman of the board. In many ways our service as volunteers has uniquely prepared us for the full-time ministry. We have a more in-depth understanding of what it means to be a volunteer in the local church that most pastors do, we have over 24 years as volunteers.
Now I would imagine some of you may be wondering, why after 19 years in the secular business world would we move into fulltime ministry? Well, the truth is, this had been in the works for probably a couple years before it took place. From early 2016 to early 2018, I felt a tug on my heart towards doing something more in ministry. I loved what I was doing, but I wanted more, and I am convinced this was the Spirit of the Lord tugging on my heart. On top of that, I had been really struggling with things at my job. I couldn’t seem to please my supervisor. Honesty, it was never a good fit for me and hadn’t been for 3 years. I was struggling enough that I thought that, perhaps I had adult ADHD. During my annual physical in December 2017, I asked my Dr. to set up testing for me, thinking that maybe some medications, or something else could help me. After 3 weeks of meetings and special testing, the counselor told me, "You do not have ADHD, you actually tested very high. Your problem is that you are in a position and an industry that is not at all suited for who you are." He then began to review his findings. He said I needed to be doing something where I am working with people, leading, teaching, encouraging. That my greatest joy and satisfaction came from helping others (Interesting, does this sound at all like ministry to you?). My current position had me at a computer screen with almost no face to face or even phone interaction at all. Not exactly an ideal fit.
Sometime in the latter months of 2017, a different battle was taking place in Pam's heart. She was pretty content in life, the truth is, we both were for the most part. We loved our home, our friends, we were a part of a really good church, we had started a ministry in the local cycling community, I was an elder at our church serving alongside my dad for the 1st time ever, it was pretty sweet. But there began to be a tugging in her heart that God wanted me back in the fulltime ministry. Sometime around that same time, someone asked me if I would ever want to go back into the ministry. My response was, "In a heartbeat, but the idea would have to come from Pam, without me prompting her. It has to be just out of the blue." I figured there was little chance of that happening! But, on Nov. 28th, 2017, she sort of threw her hands up in the air and basically said, "God, I know you are calling Jim back into the ministry, and I want you to know, I am willing!" then recorded those thoughts in her quiet time journal. After that, she began to wait on the Lords leading.
Fast forward to February 2nd, 2018. Do you remember how I said I had been struggling at work? Well on that morning I was at my desk working, I noticed the conference room by my desk had the door closed. This was not uncommon as it was used for lots of meetings. Then, the door opened, my immediate supervisor walked out, asked me to step into the conference room, long story short, about 30 minutes later I was headed to my car with boxes and bags with all my personal things from work. Devastated, I loaded them in the car, did I mention this was a brand-new car purchased 3 days earlier? At any rate, I drove to a different part of the parking lot, parked, began to read through the paperwork and spend some time in prayer. About 45 minutes later, I went to put my "brand new" car in gear, turned on the radio and immediately heard the following lyrics; Slide 12, 13, 14
"When they let me go and I just don't know
How I'm gonna make ends meet
I did my best
Now I'm scared to death
That we might lose everything
And when a sickness takes my child away
And there's nothing I can do
My only hope is to trust You
I trust You LORD
In the eye of the storm, You remain in control
In the middle of the war, You guard my soul
You alone are the anchor, when my sails are torn
Your love surrounds me, in the eye of the storm"
It was as if God, Himself, was speaking out loud to me saying, "Jim, I've got this! I am the Sovereign God, I have a plan for you, and My plan is perfect. Rest in Me, I remain in control, I am guarding your heart, I am your Anchor, and right now, in the middle of this storm, My love surrounds you!" Slide 15 The second part of the verse was very key for me. You see Pam and I lost a child, and God literally took the loss of our child and gave us 2 children, I’ll share more about this in another message. So, His speaking to me continued. “How did I do when you lost Daniel? Did I do ok? If I can take the tragic loss of a child and turn it into something marvelous, do you think I could do the same for you today?” With a sense of relief, I headed home. Can I be honest with you for a moment? That sense of relief ended when I pulled into the driveway! "What am I going to tell Pam? She's going to be devastated!" I opened the door, and there she stood, big smile on her face, happy to see me early, thinking maybe I had a dentist appointment or something. I said, "My being here early is not a good thing." Then I broke down. After a quick trip to the restroom, I went back to where she was sitting, and the 1st words out of her mouth were; "Jim. God is calling you back into the ministry!" Slide 16 Then she told me what had happened the past November. I was pretty excited, because there was that “out of the blue confirmation” I had been hoping for. But I wanted proof, so she took me up to see her Quiet Time Journal and find the entry.
Slide 17 To be completely honest with you, Village Missions was not our 1st thought when it came to ministry. Initially our thought was that we could join the ministry staff of one of the larger churches in the area. In fact, a church about 1 mile from our home had 2 positions that would have been a good fit for me. This would enable us to keep the home we raised our children in, our friends, our ministry in the local cycling community, my parents lived 12 minutes from us, my sister and her family were 5 minutes from us, all the while obeying God’s clear call on our lives. As I mentioned earlier, we were content in life, but you know, I am not at all convinced that God is overly concerned with our contentment. There really isn’t a lot of faith involved in contentment and it’s hard to be effective in ministry without faith. All that being said, that is the direction we headed, and frankly we were very excited! It happened to be that my sister, Joy’s husband was on staff at that church. He suggested we attend a Saturday afternoon service. As we headed to a Saturday service, we were filled with excitement, pretty certain this was what God had for us. On the way we prayed, seeking God’s direction and His confirmation. While this is the direction we wanted to go, we only wanted to if it was a part of God’s plan for us. Doing good, even great things that are not a part of God’s perfect plan are hardly worth the effort. After the service, before we even left the parking lot, we began to talk. Seriously, pretty much immediately we both stated that we knew this was not what God wanted for us! In some ways it was a little sad for us, did I mention we were content in our little world.
As we sat at home later that evening. I was sitting I my chair and Pam was on the couch near me. There on the coffee table next to me was the Village Missions magazine. “Country Matters” that just happened to come in that day’s mail, I began to thumb through the pages. Towards the very beginning was a statement that noted that there were currently 23 churches waiting for a Village Missions pastor, 23! I tossed the magazine to Pam and said, “What if God is calling us into Village Missions?” Within a short period of time God had confirmed that was exactly what He was doing!
My 1st thought when I started thinking about Village Missions was that we’d be in a church of somewhere between 20-40 people out in the middle of nowhere. And I have to be honest with you, I thought to myself; “I’ve got this!” I started making my plans of what “I” was going to do, starting with getting our house ready to sell. Slide 18 Then on March 3rd2018, I headed to a criterium bike race. These are usually the more dangerous of the road bike races. Tight groups, lots of turns, high speeds. After a few laps I was towards the front of the pack and the guy directly in front of me swerved quickly, clipped my front wheel and down I went…list the injuries, what went through my mind for the 1st couple days, not being able to work on the house, BVBC coming alongside us…
Slide 19
2 very important things were taking place during that time.
1. The enemy was on the attack. Satan did not want us back in the fulltime ministry, and this was phase one of his attack on Pam and me. Phase one, there was more to come, we may discuss other attacks another day.
2. It was a message from the Lord-
Ø To me specifically-“I don’t got this!”
Ø I am a tool in the Hand’s of the Master Craftsman, nothing more.
Ø He does the work through me as I yield to Him!
You know, I also think that even today, 3 ½ years later we can draw lessons from the enemies attacks back in 2018. I learned a valuable lesson in my short and painful racing career, racing works better when you work together as a team! One of the reason riders race in tight groups is they draft off of other riders. And this works especially well when teams are in tight groups. They trade places up front pulling. It is a team sport, and Slide 20 Great things happen when you work together as a team. God brought Pam and me here to come alongside those already involved in the ministry of Grace Christian Fellowship, not to replace you all, but to work alongside you.
I’d like to end this morning’s service by looking at a passage together 1 Cor. 2:1-5 Page 1211 in the pew Bibles
Slide 21. My plan initially was to use this passage as a way of introducing myself to you as the Pastor at Grace. I’m not a flashy preacher, so you will not get a ton of “lofty speech” from me!
But as I was thinking through things, it dawned on me, this passage really fits well with all of us, not just Pastors. If you look back at the 1st chapter, starting in verse 26, you see that Paul here is just continuing a thought he started in chapter 1. Where he points out God’s call on all those who are redeemed. God rarely calls the wise, the powerful, the noble-instead He calls the foolish, the weak, the low and despised. The wise, powerful and noble tend to take credit for the work of God through them. Those of us who are foolish, weak and despised, well we know Who it is that is at work.
Paul goes on in chapter 2 to point out that he himself was anything but wise powerful and noble.
What he knew, he proclaimed “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
And what he knew he proclaimed, many times “in weakness and in fear and much trembling”.
I am certain that we at Grace can do the same thing, and as we do, God will move in powerful ways.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Benediction: Romans 12:4-5, For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.